


here's the countdown

by gealbhan



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, COUNTER/Weight - Freeform, F/F, Fireworks, Fluff, Getting Together, New Year's Eve, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 18:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: If someone had asked her last week where she planned to be this very moment, Aria Joie would not have said “dangling from the side of a building and knocking frantically on her crush’s bedroom window,” but a bit of spontaneity never hurt anyone.





	here's the countdown

**Author's Note:**

> SO UH... i started writing this in october and then, around 500 words, permanently banished it to my drafts. now that it's actually new year's eve, here it is, with an additional 1500+ and extremely little editing! happy 2019!
> 
> don't ask me what this verse is because i don't know either. title is from "check yes juliet" by we the kings. enjoy!

If someone had asked her last week where she planned to be this very moment, Aria Joie would not have said “dangling from the side of a building and knocking frantically on my crush’s bedroom window,” but a bit of spontaneity never hurt anyone.

(This is false, but right now, she doubts it’ll hurt anyone or anything.)

Her knocks echo through the momentary silence in the wake of another explosion, and she grits her teeth and tucks her legs further up into herself. Hopefully no one’s awake or inside to see her heels dangling outside their window. If they are, she prays they’ll dismiss it as a sleep- and/or fireworks rage-induced hallucination and roll back over.

Behind her, another firework goes off. Aria startles, legs almost slipping back down, but holds true, knocking on Jacqui’s window once more. It’s not that late (it is) and the lights are on, she can’t be asleep already or out watching or setting off fireworks, unless she’s wasteful and left her lamp on—

And then a familiar silhouette appears, metallic hand on her cocked hip and shock of green-and-purple hair the best damn thing Aria’s seen in her life. Though she usually has this reaction to seeing Jacqui.

Jacqui raises a scarred eyebrow. “Why,” she says, not making it sound a question—but perhaps the glass has warped her tone.

“Let me in,” says Aria, pressing her face against the window and shivering for effect. “It’s freezing.” (This is true. She’s wearing a thin leather jacket over a dress ill-suited for the below-thirty-degree weather—it’s for the aesthetic, okay?)

Rolling her eyes, Jacqui unlocks the window and slides it up. Aria grins, hefts herself up and inside, and lands on the carpet with a neat flourish. Jacqui gives a low, impressed whistle. Probably sarcastic, but Aria will take what she can get.

“Fancy footwork.”

“Hey, all that dancing pays off.” Aria does a little jig, though she’s still slightly out of breath. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a show coming up. First one of the new year. You want VIP tickets?”

Jacqui’s eyes light up—subtle, given how dark her eyes are in the first place, but Aria notices. Aria always notices. “You sure you can afford to just give tickets away?”

“Who said you’d get them for free?” says Aria, affronted. “That would be unfair to my other fans.” When Jacqui rolls her eyes, she laughs. “Of course I can. Just as long as you don’t tell anyone else you’re special in that regard. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I have favorites.”

“Of course,” says Jacqui. She chuckles a little, then glances at the open window again—her smile drops, replaced with a concerned frown. “How the fuck did you get up here?”

“Oh, that. I just climbed the side of the building. Thank God you have a room with a window, right?”

“You— _what_. How?”

“Mako taught me,” says Aria breezily.

“…Mako taught you,” repeats Jacqui.

“He’s short and stubborn,” says Aria. “He has to climb shit a lot. Including buildings.”

Jacqui opens her mouth, then shuts it. “Yeah, okay,” she says, and that’s that. “And why did you scale the side of my dorm building at ten-thirty PM on New Year’s Eve?”

Aria’s mouth widens into a devious smile, and she takes Jacqui’s cold hands in her own. “I want to show you something. Will you meet me outside in ten minutes?”

“Am I going to regret this?”

“Maybe,” says Aria, but she doesn’t give Jacqui a chance to reply before she ducks back out the window, ignoring Jacqui’s alarmed yelp.

Okay, so the time limit had been partially to give her time to work her way back down. But walking down the stairs or taking the elevator just doesn’t have _any_ of the flair descending a building does. It’s different! It’s dramatic! It’s dangerous! That’s Aria Joie in a nutshell! Besides, as she finds out while she’s sliding down the part of the building that’s out of eyeshot of any people who happen to be looking out their windows, it’s a much quicker trip down than up, and she’s on the soft ground well before Jacqui emerges.

“Oh, good, you brought a jacket,” she says. “That’ll come in handy.”

Jacqui eyes Aria’s own rather sheer jacket—in comparison to Jacqui’s bulky flannel, it might as well be a piece of paper. “I’m sure. What was this thing you wanted to show me?”

Aria fishes her car keys out of her pocket. “You’ll find out!”

So she takes Jacqui out to the campus parking lot, where Regent’s Brilliance is immediately visible—for one, she’s one of only a few cars still around (given most other students had traveled or gone home for winter break), and for another, she’s a bright pink pickup truck. Hard to miss, even at night.

“We’re driving somewhere?” says Jacqui.

“Yep!” says Aria, and despite Jacqui’s puppy-dog looks, she doesn’t elaborate any further.

Jacqui has to duck to fit into the passenger side, but once she’s situated, they’re off. Aria takes a side street; not only is it the fastest route to their destination (the location of which she knows by heart), but it’s a road Jacqui likely hasn’t taken before and thus won’t recognize. When Jacqui doesn’t say anything, just looks out the window to watch the early fireworks, Aria flicks on the radio. She manages to catch this station playing one of her songs. No, _her_ isn’t quite right—

“Hey,” she says, nudging Jacqui, who hums in recognition. “It’s our song.”

“June”—a single they’d written together, huddled in Aria’s dorm room last year and unable to focus on their group project once Jacqui had realized she was _that_ Aria Joie and asked if she could play a little something. They’d gotten to talking about fireworks, which led, like most things, to talking about love, and how love to Jacqui felt like an explosion. (Aria would realize how true that was not long after.) Aria had gotten a little inspired and asked Jacqui if she knew anything about songwriting. Maybe, in the end, Aria had been the one who’d written the majority of the lyrics and only the basic concept belonged to Jacqui, but it still feels like _theirs_.

Tone-wise, the song is much quieter than most of Aria’s other tracks; by association, gentler and more romantic. She’d unearthed her acoustic guitar and relearned how to play it to record it. It’d gotten a peppier remix for the radio, but she’s still proud of the original—it’d been honest and sweet, something she didn’t get to be very often.

Jacqui grins. “It is! God, I forgot you actually released this outside of Soundcloud.”

“Ugh, yeah, I just couldn’t handle people calling it one of my ‘lost tracks.’” Aria realizes she hasn’t been watching the road and quickly checks their surroundings—okay, still familiar, and her brights (there’s no one else around, it’s fine) plus the fireworks create enough light to see. “Ooh, we’re almost there.”

“Okay, by now, I’m kind of worried you’re going to murder me.”

Aria huffs. “If I wanted to murder you, I’d poison you or something, not drag you to a secondary location and brute force it. You’re too strong for me to take down on my own.” Beat. “Also, you’re one of my best friends and I like you more than most of my other friends. I wouldn’t kill you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” says Jacqui, but her lips twitch.

Less than five minutes later, they’ve reached their destination—an empty clearing, dull grass surrounding a perfect dirt path for Aria to park Brilliance. The most important thing about the area is at once obvious: the clear view of the sky.

Aria snatches a blanket from the backseat and hops out of the car to set up. Jacqui’s much slower to follow, and by then Aria is already perched in the back with her knees pulled up to her chest. Aria pats the picnic blanket she’s spread out beneath her; the way she’s sitting, there’s plenty of room for Jacqui. Jacqui hesitates, face lit by the fireworks going off not far away—after a moment of consideration, she shrugs and comes to sit beside Aria, letting her legs dangle off the edge of the truck.

“This is… more comfortable than I expected.”

“Right? I used to drive out here to stargaze all the time. You can’t really see the stars right now,” says Aria, gesturing at the sky, obscured with clouds and firework residue, “but I’d be happy to take you out here another time.”

Jacqui stares at her in a way that makes Aria feel startlingly vulnerable. “You would, huh?”

“Totally.”

“Hm.” Jacqui turns to face away from Aria, a playful smirk taking over her face—an expression Aria’s seen countless times before. “I’ve never really stargazed before, but it’s nice out here. And if it’s with you, I’ll have a great time.”

Aria’s face is too warm for the fact that she can see her own breath when she exhales, but still, she flashes Jacqui a grin. Another firework goes off—this one is green, the same shade as the streaks in Jacqui’s hair.

For a long period of time, they sit in comfortable, silent companionship, hands brushing on the blanket. Neither of them mentions it. Then Jacqui stands, and she says something, but underneath the truck-rumbling _boooom_ of another firework, Aria can’t make it out. She squints and taps her ear. A frown crossing her face, Jacqui waits until the fireworks have stopped long enough to audibly repeat, “Do you want to dance, Miss Joie?”

Aria tilts her head, letting her hair fall across her shoulder as she feigns contemplation. “Normally, people don’t ask that when pyrotechnics are going off all around them.”

Jacqui barks a laugh. “I’m not a normal person.”

“Point taken,” says Aria with a smirk of her own, and she, too, gets to her feet. She dusts nonexistent debris off her skirt and takes Jacqui’s hands in her own. “Do you know how to slow dance, Miss Green?”

“I’ve danced my fair share of waltzes.”

“Hidden depths, huh? I like that.”

They don’t waltz, though, since Aria admits she doesn’t know how to; she’s more familiar with modern, solo dances than traditional ones. Years upon years of attending a variety of social events (and showing up everyone else at them) have taught her enough about basic slow dancing that she feels comfortable resting one hand on Jacqui’s waist and situating their feet between each other’s.

Jacqui raises an eyebrow. “I’ve always led before.”

“Tonight’s your lucky night, then,” says Aria with what she knows is her most dazzling grin.

“Oh, I’m sure it is.”

Jacqui’s arm drapes around Aria’s neck, cold metal sending shivers up her spine. Jacqui mouths an apology—or maybe says it, but with the fireworks blowing out Aria’s eardrums, she won’t be able to tell unless Jacqui says something else. Aria waits in expectation, but Jacqui doesn’t say another word. Just keeps smiling down at Aria the same way Aria must be smiling up at her.

And they dance. Here, with no one else around, they’re allowed to lose themselves in it; Aria guides Jacqui in a clean spiral that avoids both Brilliance and the end of the dirt path. With all the strength she can muster, drawn from her prosthetic forearm, she even manages to twirl Jacqui a couple times. But for the most part, they only sway like two middle schoolers awkwardly hovering on the edge of the crowd at a school dance. And Aria—Aria wouldn’t have it any other way. She whistles “June” under her breath, and she holds Jacqui’s waist and hand, and she meets her smile with a blinding one of her own, and she hears every sporadic firework set off with her whole body.

And then, from every direction, comes the sound of what might be hundreds of fireworks—colors and shapes of all kinds burst into the night sky, lighting up the grass and Aria’s truck and Jacqui’s face. Aria’s grip tightens on Jacqui’s waist. Her heart beats in time with the crackling and explosions. Love is an explosion, indeed.

“It must be midnight,” she says, just as Jacqui grins and says, “Happy new year.”

They exchange fondly sheepish looks. Under the flickering lights, Jacqui’s face flashes several different colors in a row—pink, then green, then red, then purple, then yellow. With each passing firework, Aria becomes more and more aware of how goddamn deep she is.

“Hey, so you know that one little New Year’s tradition?” says Aria, tilting her head, and Jacqui’s eyes widen, but she nods. “Well, it’s midnight, and—”

And she stops. They’ve stopped dancing; standing in place with their bodies pressed together and their gazes locked, though, seems somehow even more intimate than their gentle swaying of the moments prior. Aria leans up on her tiptoes so she’s closer to eye level. There’s a pregnant moment of tension between them—a tangible _will we or won’t we_ , frozen for seconds that feel like eons.

Then Aria says, almost a whisper but still audible over the cliché-as-fuck fireworks, which have impossibly faded to background noise, “Do you want to—”

“Yes,” says Jacqui, and she leans down to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you have time to spare, i really appreciate all comments & kudos <3
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/birdmarrow) / [tumblr](http://dndbutch.tumblr.com)


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